him very insolently, and more like a criminal than a prisoner of war. This John resented so highly, that he challenged him to a single combat. The challenge was accepted, and time and place assigned them by the king's appointment. Both appeared on the day prefixed, and entered the lists completely armed amidst a great multitude of spectators. Their first encounters were very furious, and the success equal on both sides; till after some toil and bloodshed they were parted by their seconds to fetch breath, and prepare themselves afresh for the combat. Briant in the mean time had cast his eye upon his brother's escutcheon, which he saw agree in all points with his own. I need not tell you after this, with what joy and surprise the story ends. King Edward who knew all the particulars of it, as a mark of his esteem, gave to each of them, by the king of France's consent, the following coat of arms, which I will send you in the original language, not being herald enough to blazon it in English.

"Le Roi d'Angleterre par permission du Roi de France, pour perpétuelle mémoire de leurs grands faits d'armes et fidélité envers leurs Rois, leur donna par ampliation à leurs armes en une croix d'argent cantonée de quartre coquilles d'or en champ de sable, qu'ils avoient auparavant, une endenteleuse faite en façons de croix de gueulle inserée au dedans de la ditte croix d'argent et par le milieu d'icelle qui est participation des deux croix que portent les dits Rois en la guerre.”

• I am afraid by this time you begin to wonder that I should send you for news a tale of three or four hundred years old; and I dare say never thought, when you desired me to write to you, that I should trouble you with a story of king John, especially at a time when there is a monarch on the French throne

that furnishes discourse for all Europe.

But I con

fess I am the more fond of the relation, because it brings to mind the noble exploits of our own countrymen though at the same time I must own it is not so much the vanity of an Englishman which puts. me upon writing it, as that I have of taking any occa sion to subscribe myself, Sir, Yours, &c.'

SIR,

I AM extremely obliged to you for your last kind letter", which was the only English that had been spoken to me for some months together, for I am at present forced to think the absence of my countrymen my good fortune:

• Votum in amante novum! vellem, quod amamus, abesset.” OVID. Met. iii. 468.

Strange wish, to harbour in a lover's breast!

I wish that absent, which I love the best.'

This is an advantage that I could not have hoped for, had I stayed near the French court, though I must confess I would not but have seen it, because I believe it shewed me some of the finest places, and of the greatest persons in the world. One cannot hear a name mentioned in it that does not bring to mind a piece of a gazette, nor see a man that has not signalized himself in a battle. One would fancy one's self to be in the enchanted palaces of a romance; one meets with so many heroes, and finds something so like scenes of magic in the gardens, statues, and water-works. I am ashamed that I am not able to make a quicker progress through the French tongue, because I believe it is impossible for a learner of a language to find in any nation such advantages as in

A letter probably from Steele, to the Traveller, supposed to be Mr. (afterwards bishop) Berkeley.

Is it tongue or language, says Swift to Mrs. Johnson, his wife.

this, where every body is so very courteous, and so very talkative. They always take care to make a noise as long as they are in company, and are as loud any hour of the morning, as our own countrymen at midnight. By what I have seen, there is more mirth in the French conversation, and more wit in the English. You abound more in jests, but they in laughter. Their language is indeed extremely proper to tattle in, it is made up of so much repetition and compliment. One may know a foreigner by his answering only No or Yes to a question, which a Frenchman generally makes a sentence of. They have a set of ceremonious phrases that run through all ranks and degrees among them. Nothing is more common than to hear a shopkeeper desiring his neighbour to have the goodness to tell him what it is o'clock, or a couple of cobblers, that are extremely glad of the honour of seeing one another.

• The face of the whole country where I now am, is at this season pleasant beyond imagination. I cannot but fancy the birds of this place, as well as the men, a great deal merrier than those of our own nation. I am sure the French year has got the start of ours more in the works of nature, than in the new stile. I have past one March in my life without being ruffled with the winds, and one April without being washed with rains. 'I am, SIR, yours,' &c.

Blois, May 20, N. S.

y This paper, and No. 101, are distinguished by hands, as papers of Addison, who probably was not the author, but only the publisher, of them. The publication of the Guardian devolved entirely on Addison, for two or three weeks, about this time: and it seems that if he had been always circumstanced as Steele was, he would have called as loudly for the letterbox,' as Steele is said to have done by Dr. Johnson. An attentive reader must long ere now have anticipated this remark, and can be at no loss for previous instances that might be urged as arguments of its probability.

No. 105. SATURDAY, JULY 11, 1713.*

Hoc neque in Armeniis tigres fecere latebris:

Perdere nec fœtus ausa leœna suos.

At tenera faciunt, sed non impune, puellæ ;
Sæpe, suos utero quæ necat, ipsa perit.

OVID. Amor. 2 Eleg. xiv. 35.

The tigresses, that haunt th' Armenian wood,
Will spare their proper young, tho' pinch'd for food!
Nor will the Lybian lionesses slay

Their whelps: but women are more fierce than they,
More barbarous to the tender fruit they bear;

Nor Nature's call, tho' loud she cries, will hear.

But righteous vengeance oft their crimes pursues,

And they are lost themselves who would their children lose.

ANON.

THERE was no part of the show on the thanksgiving day that so much pleased and affected me as the little boys and girls who were ranged with so much order and decency in that part of the Strand which reaches from the May-pole to Exeter-change. Such a numerous and innocent multitude, clothed in the charity of their benefactors, was a spectacle pleasing both to God and man, and a more beautiful expression of joy and thanksgiving than could have been exhibited by all the pomps of a Roman triumph. Never did a more full and unspotted chorus of human creatures join together in a hymn of devotion. The care and tenderness which appeared in the looks of their several instructors, who were disposed among this little helpless people, could not forbear touching every heart that had any sentiments of humanity.

I am very sorry that her majesty did not see this assembly of objects, so proper to excite that charity

* ADDISON'S.

See Nos. 101, and 105.

and compassion which she bears to all who stand in need of it, though at the same time I question not but her royal bounty will extend itself to them. A charity bestowed on the education of so many of her young subjects, has more merit in it than a thousand pensions to those of a higher fortune who are in greater stations in life.

I have always looked on this institution of charityschools, which of late years has so universally prevailed through the whole nation, as the glory of the age we live in, and the most proper means that can be made use of to recover it out of its present degeneracy and depravation of manners. It seems to promise us an honest and virtuous posterity. There will be few in the next generation, who will not at least be able to write and read, and have not had the early tincture of religion. It is therefore to be hoped that the several persons of wealth and quality, who made their procession through the members of these new-erected seminaries, will not regard them only as an empty spectacle, or the materials of a fine show, but contribute to their maintenance and increase. For my part, I can scarce forbear looking on the astonishing victories our arms have been crowned with, to be in some measure the blessings returned upon that national charity which has been so conspicuous of late; and that the great successes of the last war, for which we lately offered up our thanks, were in some measure occasioned by the several objects which then stood before us.

Since I am upon this subject, I shall mention a piece of charity which has not been yet exerted among us, and which deserves our attention the more, because it is practised by most of the nations about us. I mean a provision for foundlings, or for those child* See Spect. No. 190. note on the Magdalen-house and Asylum, signed